


Firsts

by patternofdefiance



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Firsts, Laughter, Sneezing, Vulnerability, sleeping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-10
Updated: 2013-02-14
Packaged: 2017-11-24 09:14:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/632791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patternofdefiance/pseuds/patternofdefiance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a first time for everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sleeping (Sherlock)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a collection of stand-alones.  
> I'll probably add about one per week, depending on how obnoxious my longer fic decides to be.
> 
> I'm writing these as they occur to me, so the timeline will be jumbled.  
> Maybe one day when this collection is finished, I'll reorder the chapters chronologically.
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s nearly six weeks before Sherlock falls asleep in his presence, but when it happens, John almost instinctively realizes how much it means.

Unlike the blokes at the Yard, John knows that Sherlock sleeps, and sleeps far more than they seem to assume. They only see him when he’s in Case Mode, when everything is blazing fast and urgent, and he’s never tired or hungry, because those things don’t register on his radar when the game is afoot.

But after cases, Sherlock stalks home, sometimes with John in tow, sometimes not, and sweeps into the flat, disappears into his room, and doesn’t emerge until he’s rested, recharged, revitalized.

John knows better now than to knock on the door, since there will be no answer, and Sherlock, who values no one else’s privacy, actually locks his door when he sleeps. (John checks his arms for marks when he emerges, as surreptitiously as possible, although Sherlock knows, but John is too polite to do it overtly, so covert concern it must remain.)

But the fact remains that Sherlock is a loud, tactless, and nosy individual, given to blatant bouts of over-sharing, who nonetheless is extremely private in his repose.

And John can understand that, because his own sleeping habits, needs, and compulsions-if-he’s-being-honest are far from normal, if still completely textbook. The dreams… but John isn’t thinking about his sleep or lack thereof now, but rather Sherlock’s, because Sherlock is asleep on the couch for the first time since John moved in.

They were talking about something – or rather, Sherlock was raving about some experiment (Bart’s wouldn’t lend him something or other?) and John was nodding behind his book and grunting at the appropriate places, and then the rant just stopped –

And there was Sherlock, all limbs and exposed throat and slightly parted lips, eyes closed, breathing the even (boring) breaths of sleep.

On the couch.

In John’s presence.

For a moment John considered Narcolepsy, but scratched that idea on grounds of prior evidence. No, no underlying syndrome had caused this – Sherlock’s body had simply won some internal battle.

John realizes ten minutes later that while his thoughts have drifted, his eyes have not. Just as he turns his eyes back to his book, Sherlock begins to stir. A sort of soft, breathy hum escapes his lips, before his mouth shuts with a snap and his eyes open as if they have simply blinked and not stolen ten minutes of slumber.

John’s eyes are fixed on his book.

“If you’re having, I’ll take a cup of tea.”

John raises his eyebrows, then feels his lips quirk, just so. He stands and fetches two cups of tea.

And that is the first time.


	2. Sneezing (Sherlock)

The first time it happens, John’s whole body twitches in surprise. He’s been living in 221B almost a month now, and thinks he has a bead on Sherlock’s moods, habits, and sounds.

By now he knows:

Sherlock doesn’t sleep much, but he does laze about a lot, which might be a factor in his insomniac tendencies.

Sherlock will have the odd slice of toast with his morning tea, never lunch, but is not above stealing some of John’s takeaway dinner. The first time it happened it almost seemed like a mixup, the second time it was rude, the third time it was petulant, but by the fourth it was a standing arrangement. John has begun to buy takeaway for two.

Sherlock seems indifferent to weather. If it is cold outside, the coat and scarf and gloves are a logical choice, but it becomes apparent that they are the only option even if the day is lovely and sunny and not even a touch windy. John wonders what summer will bring.

Sherlock, despite loud outbursts, obstinate fits, and impromptu violin concertos at any time of day, is a remarkably quiet (human?) being. True to his first words, he can go days without uttering a single word, something he proved their second week together. Not a peep for three and a half days, and then he simply continued their last conversation where they’d left off. “Not at all, John,” he’d said, but for the life of him John can’t remember what he’d asked three and a half days prior.

In all of his methods and modes, Sherlock was and is proving himself to be a creature of control, of predicted poise and posture. He has routines. He has habits. Even his sudden spells of noise and silence have been accounted for, are somehow in synch and on schedule with his inner calendar.

So when Sherlock breaks another spell of protracted silence in late February at 11 pm by _sneezing_ , John nearly drops his tea. And it isn’t just a sneeze, a comical clearing of nostrils – it’s a tempestuous, body-wracking _seizure_  of sneeze.

John can’t help it.

He really can’t.

The laugh sort of creeps up on him, like a cough, like a  _sneeze_ , and suddenly he’s clutching his sides, tea abandoned on the kitchen counter, half-spilled when he deposited the cup there, and he’s bending over, aching as he laughs.

Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock’s  _face_.

It’s unbelievable, and it’s doing nothing to help John’s current state.

Because John saw the whole thing – inception to ejection, the realization that, yes, a sneeze is coming, the quick and ill-fated attempt to reign it in, and then the actual convulsion, the loud expulsion of air and surprised baritone vocal accompaniment.

And now the aftermath has John checking his eyes for tears, because not only does Sherlock seem affronted by John’s reaction, but John is almost certain that he is startled by this minor failure to control his own body. There is a look of wonder mixed with the overwhelming aura of peeved-ness and bruised dignity.

The day has been so quiet up until now, and John realizes he hasn’t made a peep all day either, and now his laughter is dragging him to the floor, and he lets gravity have him. He hopes,  _really_   _hopes_ , Sherlock isn’t going to take any of this the wrong way, because, God, he’s needed this, and he couldn’t stop himself now if he tried.

Sherlock stares at him in a kind of shock, and then the shock becomes pleased surprise, and then his eyes are crinkling at the corners, and then he’s joining in, too, laughing as loudly (if not as boisterously) as John. The tension John was hoping wouldn’t arrive doesn’t – or if it did, Sherlock seems to be letting it go.

They both scale down and stop at the same time. John is gasping for breath, leaning against a wall, head tipped up and back, breathing harshly. He hasn’t laughed this hard since before his invalidation.

When he finally can, John says, breathless, “Bless you.”

“You’re welcome.”

John feels a steady gaze, but when he tilts his head down, eyes bright, Sherlock’s own eyes are fixed on his laptop.

But there’s a tiny upturn at the corner of his mouth for the rest of the night.


	3. Bare Feet (John)

The first time it happens, Sherlock isn’t pleased or disappointed or even curious. No, none of that. But his world does cant slightly to the side, some influence of some new gravity.

Not very noticieable, no not even to him.

But of course, by the time - the first time - John goes barefoot in the apartment, Sherlock had already deduced everything he could about John from his gait, his clothing choices, his movement patterns through the flat.

The bare feet mostly confirm what he’s figured out by now- that John’s feet, while strong and tough, have slightly low arches (too much time spent in army boots, not enough arch-stimulation). He can and will (and has) run fast enough, but later the resulting aches do and will (and have) resulted in surly moods.

The toe of his left foot, the big one, is a little swollen – not a corn, not a bunion – a broken bone, years ago, sustained while on tour, never properly healed. Sherlock already supposes, and now adds a tick-mark in that column of evidence, that John must make a difficult patient. Doctors so frequently do.

And army doctors… well.

The nails of John’s toes are trimmed down almost to the point of bleeding, which tells Sherlock that John cuts his toenails infrequently, but makes up for it when he does with severity. Still, they are clean, with smooth edges – which says something about his love life.

Bare feet under sheets seeking other bare feet under sheets.

Yes that.

One pinky toe – the left one, again – splays more than the other: compensation for the weaker big toe, which is integral to balancing. Sherlock wonders if John’s Nuchal ligament will indicate his protection of his left foot, right there at the base of the skull, the root of all human locomotion. If he presses in hard enough, probed with sensitive fingertips, could he feel an unbalance?

Would John allow it?

Likely not.

Sherlock noticed all this and more in the first exploits he shared with John – meeting him, first crime scene, running after that damn cab… He deduced these paltry details and discarded them, left to pile somewhere in his hard drive, not really deleted, but not given place of honour either.

Seeing John go barefoot at the apartment adds nothing new to his understanding of John, really.

What Sherlock doesn’t notice, is what bare feet _mean_.

Bare feet mean:

Not leaving. Not right now, anyway. Not going out. Spending the evening here at 221B, _at home_. Indicates comfort, trust, a lack of self-consciousness.

 Bare feet mean one less boundary, one less worry concerning the division between strangers and flatmates. That line is already blurring, changing into the barrier between flatmates and friends. That line is already smudging, too, becoming something that makes Mycroft sneer, for all he refuses to say anything. Let him keep his secrets, the git.

Sherlock doesn’t piece this together, because it’s not important, in the same way that planets aren’t, because it’s just gravity on a very big scale.

But this is important, because it’s gravity on a very small scale, personal gravity, and because Sherlock isn’t paying attention, he doesn’t see his center shifting, his orbit realigning.

He is becoming a binary system, without knowing it.

And bare feet are just the beginning.


	4. Sleep Deprived (John)

The first time John goes two days without sleep, it is Sherlock’s fault.

Well. No. The first time was really Afghanistan, or Uni before that - but as an adult, respectable, dependable human being, this is the first time.

And it’s Sherlock’s fault.

It’s also Sarah’s fault, because she gave him two days off from the rotation, and he mistakenly told Sherlock, although Sherlock would have figured it out anyway the _sod –_

But mostly it’s Sherlock’s fault.

Although technically it’s Lestrade’s fault, since he was the one who texted Sherlock at 10  _bloody_  PM, the one who hired incompetent bloody crime scene officers, the one who allowed and damn well _encouraged_ Sherlock –

But Sherlock was the one who responded, _On our way – SH_

Wait, when did it become ‘our’ way?

So right. Blame. Yes. Sherlock’s.

No. No. No, if John’s being honest, it’s the _murderer’s_ fault, because they couldn’t be bothered to keep up with their prescriptions, the poor sod. Those poor bastards.

God, what a mess.

So, yes. That. Definitely the murderer or Anderson or Lestrade’s fault.

Really Sherlock’s though.

Definitely not John’s fault.

It’s not like he had a choice in the matter. It’s not like he could have refused, stayed home, watched crap telly, and gone to bed and observed mealtimes or anything.

John isn’t at fault at all, and he can stop anytime he likes.


End file.
